WAITING FOR US TO GROW WEARY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504400009-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 17, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: October 3, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
k Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504400009-3
ON PAGE.
WASHINGTON TIMES
3 October 1986
Waiting for us to grow weary
Now that the Nicholas
Daniloff case no
longer monopolizes
public attention,
there is time to taker
hard look at a more
significant aspect of Soviet policy
and to ask what General Secretary
Mikhail Gorbachev is really trying
to accomplish in the Third World.
In his speech to the 27th Party
Congress, Mr. Gorbachev appeared
to downgrade the importance of
revolutionary movements in the un-
derdeveloped nations. Skeptical of
his disinterest, this r ?ter jot
well-informed group of academic
e erts journalists intelligence
analysts, state Department offi-
cials who met in Washington for two
days last who wet the Tie evidence
and reach their own conclusions.
Convened under the auspices of
the Wilson Center's K n to
for Russian Studies. the assembled
experts issued no formal statement,
but reached broad agreement that
the Soviets are running what one
participant described as "an ex-
traordinarily fluid, diverse, and
complex strategy in Africa, Asia,
and Latin America."
Although evidently more cautious
than Leonid Brezhnev and less will-
ing to take on expensive new com-
mitments, Mr. Gorbachev emerges
from a close look at his actions as a
tough, resourceful Communist
leader.
He is clearly determined to main-
tain Marxist regimes in power wher-
ever they have been established and
seems willing to respond to new
cost-effective opportunities when
they present themselves.
Nothing that is likely to happen at
the pre-summit meeting in Iceland
is going to change the flexibl.oppor-
tunism with which the Soviets seek
to expand their system into the Third
World. Highly desirable as new ver-
ifiable arms control agreements
may be, they will do nothing to pre-
vent the gradual increase in the
number of one-party Marxist states
aligned with Moscow that now
stretch from Vietnam to Angola and
from Nicaragua to Ethiopia.
From the intense discussion and
informed debate at the Kennan Insti-
tute, a clear picture emerges of the
peculiar advantages the Soviets de-
rive from being both a powerful na-
tional state and the leader of a
worldwide revolutionary moves tent.
The provision of Soviet arms and the
propagation of Marxist ideology
have in too many cases worked to-
gether both to impose and justify
dictatorial rule bk a single vanguard
party under the Kremlin's control.
Tb an extent that most Americans
do not realize, the Soviet govern-
mental structure and budgetary pri-
orities are designed to support and
expand the number of Marxist re-
gimes that occupy strategic posi-
tions on the world's map.
In the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, Secretary General Gorba-
chev has installed Anatoly Dobrynin
as the head of a more influential In-
ternational Department that serves
as the general staff of the world rev-
olution in coordinating military, pro-
paganda, and intelligence activi
As ones. intelligence official
co men at a Kennan institute
meeting, "If one could exact Marx-
ist regimes toe reversible, then one
could accept them with more equa-
ninu " But the harsh reality is that
no Marxist regime once firmly in
control of the party, army, and secu-
rity forces sever been overthrown
from within, and onl one, Grenada,
has been removed rom outside The
Soviets have learned ,the technol-
ogy of regime preservation"
Moreover, once established, such
regimes have a proven tendency to
proliferate, as the Cuban revolution
helped sponsor the Nicaraguan re-
volt, which in turn supports the
guerrillas in El Salvador. It is for this
reason that the Reagan doctrine s
evolved to assist anti- mmunist
-guerrillas in AfR star o a,
and Nicaragua with covert U.S. aid.
By now it is-obvious that r-
bachev's reaction to this American
initiative is to raise the ante and to
increase substantially the Soviet
military support to the Marxist re-
gimes in all three countries. The So-
viet expectation seems to be that
over the long haul the United States
will weary of its interventionary
burden, as it did in Vietnam.
In an informal poll of a number of
Kennan Institute conferees, they
were asked to guess which Third
World states were now at the top of
the Soviet list for destabilization and
Communist takeover.
Interestingly, Chile and South Af-
rica were picked unanimously. In
both countries, oppressive right-
wing regimes are obvious targets
for polarization. Well-organized
Communist parties stand ready to
pick up the pieces and to confront
the United States with another stra-
tegic retreat.
Many of humanity's hopes in the
next few days will be concentrated
on the lofty summit in Iceland, but
what happens in the dusty back-
yards of the Third World may have
more to do with the eventual out-
come.
Cord Meyer is a nationally syndi-
cated columnist.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/17: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504400009-3